Editorial-Making Children's Lives Better

Patrick Jones, on our cover this month, is on to something: he maintains that the dedicated and passionate staff who provide library service to children make children's lives better, and gamely offers librarians a new framework to help them articulate their contributions. Until now, the means for documenting such important work has remained elusive, contributing to the profession's age-old legacy of being undervalued, underestimated, and underpaid. Any formula or measure that helps librarians communicate their worth is a welcome tool.

The challenge of improving the quality of children's lives took on added significance and a more critical tenor in the wake of the horrible events of September 11. Children's librarians must wring from this new, untenable climate some semblance of meaning and understanding. Schools are in an awkward position, ambivalent about where their responsibility ends and the parents' role to instill a sense of security in their children begins. As a result, many of our nation's children and young adults now live in an information vacuum, where their fears, concerns, and curiosities go unanswered.

Librarians must seize the moment by doing what they do best. There are few roles more important than helping youngsters grasp the complex concepts of tolerance, hate, and terrorism. Consider that most children have only the vaguest notions about Islamic culture and tradition. I can't conceive of a job more important than imbuing in an 11-year-old the perspective—through books and resources—to make sense of his world, a world whose daily rhythms have abruptly come under siege.

As editor of SLJ, it is my overriding goal to serve as an advocate for the field, with the express purpose of seeing children's and young adult librarians included as vigorous and vital participants in the national debate on education. As a result, SLJ will highlight the innovative work you do, to raise the profile of youth services librarians both locally and nationally. Of no less import will be our commitment to chronicle the paramount issues of the field, as well as to supply you with creative and insightful ideas and methods to help you do your job better.

Our new editorial advisory board will make its debut in 2002. We expect this board, to be comprised of the best and brightest in the field, to help us maintain our relevance and direction. Next fall will also see the first SLJ Librarian of the Year award celebrated on our cover, to go along with SLJ's Giant Step award for libraries, established in partnership with the Gale Group in 2000. Along with these promising new endeavors, SLJ will continue to be everything it has always been: the most respected and comprehensive resource available, offering you the broad perspective and unrivaled expertise you need to justify your buying decisions and to maximize your collection development efforts.

I am proud and honored to work for your magazine. I will work with SLJ's enormously talented staff to uphold and even enhance the magazine's position as the most prominent, independent magazine read by professionals providing library services to young people.

Just three weeks before the terror attacks, author Jonathan Kozol spoke in Boston to a gathering of librarians from around the world, saying that good societies are based not on wealth, military strength, or opulent hotels but on the way they treat their children, particularly the children of the citizens who are least powerful. Children's librarians hold the power to heed Kozol's call to help recast American society while continuing the invaluable, indisputable work they have always done: making children's lives better.